If we have grown up from childhood in this country we almost certainly have some awareness, however faint, of Christian religious controversy.
We know of priests’ holes in old houses that we visit, of ‘gunpowder, treason and plot’, and possibly even of the Martyrs’ Memorial in Oxford where, to our shame, we burnt at the stake two bishops, Latimer and Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, who put together what has ended up as our 1662 Prayer Book, still cherished by many today.
However, by the grace of God, we managed not to do away with Dame Julian of Norwich, who wrote down ‘Revelations of Divine Love’, nor with the anonymous writer of ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’, a guide on Contemplative prayer; both wrote in Middle English in the Middle Ages, another time when their writings could have cost them their lives. Of them we need have no shame, both works are read today and both are deeply valuable and valued for leading us inwardly to a deeper relationship with God, from whom we come.
Something of both their wisdoms is held in words from a prayer by Edwina Gateley; ‘Be silent, be still; alone, empty before your God. Say nothing. Ask nothing. Be silent. Be still – let your God look upon you. That is all.
He knows you. He made you. He indwells you .
He loves you with an enormous love. He only wants to look upon you with his love.
Let your God love you.’
Lynette Weekley,
Holy Saviour Church.
